Martina came to the United States to escape death threats by gangs. When she arrived in San Francisco, her employer abused her. We need your help to fight for Martina and protect her from deportation.

Martina migrated to the United States to escape death threats by gangs. When she arrived in San Francisco, her employer abused her. We need your help to fight for Martina and protect her from deportation.

Martina had a wonderful life in Guatemala; that all changed when they gangs took over her town. She felt unsafe wherever she went– she could no longer walk alone at night or ride the bus.

Things reached a tipping point when a gang member threatened to kill her sibling. Martina knew there was only one way to keep her family safe. She decided to come to the United States.

Martina escaped to San Francisco, where she got a job at a restaurant. She was hopeful– wasn’t this how good things began in the United States? Unfortunately, things went awry once again.

Martina’s boss was abusive. He frequently assaulted her and her coworkers, both verbally and sexually. Martina didn’t want to call the police– what if they deported her? She couldn’t risk being separated from her kids. The abuse was horrible, but losing her family would destroy her.

This abuse continued for years. Then, Martina heard about the Violence Against Women Act on the radio. “This might be my ticket to safety,” she thought. Martina wanted to learn more. That’s when she found Open Door Legal.

Our team dug into her case and realized that she may qualify for a special type of visa for people that have faced employer abuse. This would allow her to stay in the United States legally, and ensure that she would not be separated from her American-born children. The process would be difficult, but the safety and security would be well worth it for Martina. The U.S. is her home, after all.

We’re in the first stage of Martina’s application process. But in order to keep providing Martina free counsel, we need your help. Martina’s legal fees are only $2,000. With your support, we can keep her family together and safe.

Philip Green

Belinda Liu

Sil Liapis

Elder Law Attorney

(415) 610-5991
sil@opendoorlegal.org

Hannah Wischnia

Engagement Associate

(415) 906-0578
hannah@opendoorlegal.org

Client Confidentiality

As a legal aid provider, we are bound to strict ethical obligations regarding client confidentiality. We are not allowed to disclose any information learned in the course of representation, or while the client was seeking out services, without their express permission.

All clients displayed on our site gave their informed, written consent to be displayed.

The names of our clients and of adverse parties are changed in our stories to maintain their anonymity. We do not want adverse parties to retaliate against them. The images used in our stories may or not may be the likeness of the described client. All other information in our stories, including the type and dates of actions and life histories of our clients, are accurate.

Clients may or may not be available to meet with donors. It is often harmful to our clients to meet with donors during the pendency of a case. After the case is over, we provide forums where former clients and donors can meet. A client's participation in these events is entirely voluntary.

Thank you for your help creating a safe space where all our clients feel welcome.

Our Story

Our organization started when we realized that it was in fact possible to ensure universal access to civil representation for everyone. For years, we had watched existing legal aid nonprofits turn away more people than they helped. We had seen the government grossly underfund legal aid and attach ever-more restrictions on who could be helped. We had witnessed the private sector invest atrociously little of its accumulated wealth into legal aid.

The result of this is predictable: legal aid has become the least resourced social need in the United States. Most low and moderate-income Americans can’t get help, and as a result can’t properly enforce their rights.

We realized that by combining program innovations, new strategies for generating earned income, and a focus on fundraising from the general public we could create a system that solved this massive problem and guaranteed access to legal representation for everyone in a community, on every issue.

We decided to prototype this system in Bayview/Hunters Point because it was the only high-need neighborhood of San Francisco without a legal aid office in the neighborhood. In late 2012 we raised about $8,000 in seed funding from some generous private donors and decided to put our theories to the test.

We opened our doors on January 7th, 2013. In our first year, our core staff worked tirelessly on minimum wage to deliver services to dozens of clients. The heating in the office didn’t work, the furniture was rotten, and we couldn’t afford a receptionist. We had to scrounge office supplies and equipment from people we knew.

But we proved that our model could work. We never turned away someone for services who lived in the local community, and by rigorously tracking our outcomes we were able to get more and more support from people that hadn’t funded legal aid before. We tripled our budget between our first and second year and tripled it again in our third year.

We’ve come a long way since the days when we had to hand shred everything because we couldn’t afford a shredder. We’re excited by what the future can bring and look forward to growing our model out to encompass more and more people.

Our Board of Directors

We are proud to have a diverse board featuring local residents and professionals from a variety of different industries. The board is in charge of implementing the member-approved annual budget and overseeing our staff.